Ford Air Bag Recall

Ford issued a recall of 144,000 F150 models from 2005 and 2006 due to a possible unintended deployment. If you have one of these pickup trucks and your air bag warning light comes on, even intermittently get it to the shop or your dealer and have it checked immediately. According to Ford the air bag light has come on in all cases where there has been an accidental air bag deployment. In some cases it stayed on and in some it was only on briefly at each start up.

Don’t take a chance. If the light comes on have it checked.

See Feb. 23 New York Time article on recall

See Feb. 24 New York Time article on recall

Do You Depend on
The Luck of the Irish?

I had a customer recently who mentioned that he always seemed to have bad luck with his cars. We talked at the front counter for awhile and he explained that almost every time he went someplace out  of town he either had a breakdown on the road or shortly after getting back home. He said that in the 20 plus years he had been driving he never had a good luck car. His car was in the shop for overheating and while the guys in the back got it checked out I commiserated with this unlucky fellow.

After the tech and I went over his work sheet I understood a little better about his seeming bad luck. The overheating problem was due to a leaking heater hose. With 130,000 miles on the car all the hoses were still the originals. The coolant looked as if it had never been changed and the radiator was full of scale and rust.

The car had 3 different brand tires on it and they were 2 different sizes. The oil was more than a quart low and very dirty. The air filter was not only dirty but the cover on the housing was not fastened. The wiper blades were worn out and the inspection sticker was a month past due.

To top it all off a close look inside the car revealed every fast food stop he had made for at least the past several weeks.

I sat down and talked with the customer about what we had seen on his car and offered to provide a detailed estimate of what it would take to get the car back in some semblance of dependable shape. He declined and not too politely let me know that all he wanted was to fix the leaking hose and that he was tired of shops trying to sell him other work every time he came in. According to him all mechanic were the same, always trying to sell a lot of unnecessary repairs to dumb car owners.

We fixed his hose and without much regret saw him off. Somehow I forgot to add his name to our Thank You list.

Luck, it is said, can be found at the intersection of preparation and opportunity. I think bad luck can be found about a block away at opportunity and lack of preparation.

If you expect to have good luck with your car it takes a little participation on your part. Doing just the basic routine maintenance will enhance the chances of having a lucky car.

Summer A/C Service Special

It's starting to warm up again and we are running our car a/c units more. I serviced both of my vehicles last week and each was just a little low. They still cooled pretty good, at least in this 70 degree weather. Most people don’t realize that the air conditioning compressor depends on Freon circulation to keep the oil moving through it. When to Freon level gets low less oil is carried into the compressor causing it to run hotter and wear faster.

Newer cars, from the mid 90’s on, only have about 2 pounds of Freon in them and a lot of cars are only charged to about 1 pound. This means that even being only a couple of ounces low on Freon can have a significant impact on the cooling and oiling ability of the car.

ALL cars leak Freon, even brand new ones will have some small leakage. On a good system it amounts to about 1 ounce a year, and that increases as the car ages. If you lose 2 ounces a year, in 2 years you are 4 ounces low. If you have a 1 pound system that means you are 25% down on the charge.

We recommend that you service the system every other year if you are seeing no problems and if you are seeing a drop in cooling ability service it as soon as possible.

At Freedom we use a machine that will pull the old Freon out of your car and measure it so we know exactly how low the system is. That Freon is “scrubbed” by the machine and then the old Freon and enough new is added to fill the system back to specification. There is a coupon in this newsletter for your Spring time A/C service. It is a lot cheaper than a compressor!

Car Pros for Kids - Thanks!

A big Thank You to all of you who helped to support Child Advocates!

This past month was Child Advocates' Car Pros for Kids month again at Freedom Automotive and 20 other great shops around the Houston area. We set a shop record this year for the number of oil change coupons sold through our location!

As you know the $30 donation you made for the oil changes goes entirely to Child Advocates to help kids in need. The group of shops working with Car Pros this year may well have set a new record for contribution. Amazing when you consider how bad everyone says the economy is!

Thank you for your help!

Remodel Is Almost Done

For the past month we have (meaning Jim mostly) working on updating the look of the front office. I think you will be pleasantly surprised on your next visit. Our plans include some new furniture and considering the stuff in there now is about 20 years old I guess it is about time. There should be some pictures up on the website soon and the ones on Facebook will be updated this week. Of course the best way to see it is stop by, have a cup of coffee with us and maybe get your vehicle serviced while you are there to help us pay for it.

Are You A Gamer?

We are adding a “Game Corner” to the waiting area. Many of our “younger” clients, or those young at heart, are really into video games. To help make the visit to the shop more pleasant and to pass the time while you are waiting we are setting up a X Box console and flat screen with a small assortment of current games for you to play. For those of you who do not want to listen to the aliens being killed the set up will include ear phones for the player so not to disturb other wanting to watch TV or work on their computer using our in house WiFi system.